Italian authorities said Tuesday that they’d foiled a plot concocted by Sardinian bandits to break into a cemetery in Modena, Italy, abscond with the coffin of Ferrari founder Enzo Ferrari and hold his remains for ransom.
The would-be tomb raiders belonged to Anonima Sequestri, a group with a history of kidnapping the living and demanding money for their victims’ release, according to CNN.
Some 300 members of Italian law enforcement agencies, including police as well as paratroopers, were involved in nabbing 34 suspects, the Italian newspaper La Stampa reported. They were members of a crime syndicate based in the city of Orgosolo on the isle of Sardinia, authorities said.
The gang had cased the San Cataldo cemetery of Modena, the Italian city where Ferrari was born and founded his vehicular empire, and planned an escape route into the Apennine Mountains on the Italian Peninsula.
Ferrari died in 1988 at age 90.